I’m not sure whether or not this is possible with home-manager, and I’m not familiar enough with NixOS/Nix to interpret most of the things going on in the background here. I’ve done my best, but bear with me:
I would like to configure some dconf options (for the purposes of this post, I’ll limit it to two example gnome extensions) in my nix config, which uses home-manager and flakes.
What works:
dconf.settings = {
# Extensions
"org/gnome/shell" = {
disable-user-extensions = false;
disabled-extensions = [
"disabled"
];
enabled-extensions = [
"forge@jmmaranan.com"
"Vitals@CoreCoding.com"
"drive-menu@gnome-shell-extensions.gcampax.github.com"
"ddterm@amezin.github.com"
"supergfxctl-gex@asus-linux.org"
"espresso@coadmunkee.github.com"
"ddterm@amezin.github.com"
"blur-my-shell@aunetx"
"just-perfection-desktop@just-perfection"
];
};
"org/gnome/shell/extensions/vitals" = {
show-battery = true;
hot-sensors = [
"_memory_usage_"
"_processor_usage_"
"_battery_state_"
"_battery_rate_"
];
};
"org/gnome/shell/extensions/espresso" = {
show-notifications = false;
};
"org/gnome/shell/extensions/just-perfection" = {
app-menu = false;
activities-button = false;
dash = false;
workspace-switcher-should-show = true;
startup-status = 0;
};
}
This works, but I’d like to consolidate things a little bit. Is it possible to do something like this:
What doesn’t work
dconf.settings = {
# Extensions
"org/gnome/shell" = {
disable-user-extensions = false;
disabled-extensions = ["disabled"];
enabled-extensions = [
"forge@jmmaranan.com"
"Vitals@CoreCoding.com"
"drive-menu@gnome-shell-extensions.gcampax.github.com"
"ddterm@amezin.github.com"
"supergfxctl-gex@asus-linux.org"
"espresso@coadmunkee.github.com"
"ddterm@amezin.github.com"
"blur-my-shell@aunetx"
"just-perfection-desktop@just-perfection"
];
"extensions" = {
"vitals" = {
show-battery = true;
hot-sensors = [
"_memory_usage_"
"_processor_usage_"
"_battery_state_"
"_battery_rate_"
];
};
"espresso" = {
show-notifications = false;
};
"just-perfection" = {
app-menu = false;
activities-button = false;
dash = false;
workspace-switcher-should-show = true;
startup-status = 0;
};
};
};
};
This nested configuration exits with the following error:
error: A definition for option `dconf.settings."org/gnome/shell".extensions' is not of type `GVariant value'. Definition values:
- In `/nix/store/cvnfsq579picrkmw3kz8l12wm9n8lfyh-source/home/home.nix':
{
espresso = {
show-notifications = false;
};
just-perfection = {
...
…And taking just-perfection as an example, from my understanding and a conversation in the community discord means that home-manager translates this to:
- Dconf key
- Path:
org/gnome/shell - Name:
extensions - Value:
"vitals" = {
show-battery = true;
hot-sensors = [
"_memory_usage_"
"_processor_usage_"
"_battery_state_"
"_battery_rate_"
];
};
"espresso" = {
show-notifications = false;
};
"just-perfection" = {
app-menu = false;
activities-button = false;
dash = false;
workspace-switcher-should-show = true;
startup-status = 0;
};
Instead of what I would expect:
-
Dconf key 1
-
Path:
org/gnome/shell/extensions/just-perfection -
Name:
app-menu -
Value:
false -
Dconf key 2
-
Path:
org/gnome/shell/extensions/just-perfection -
Name:
activities-button -
Value:
false
…etc etc. Keep in mind that I’m using just-perfecion as the example in both cases, the first is just interpreted weirdly.
Where did it go wrong?
It looks like home-manager doesn’t flatten the path as I would intuitively expect - org/gnome/shell, extensions, just-perfection and app-menu flatten into org/gnome/shell.extensions = just-perfection rather than org/gnome/shell/extensions/just-perfection.app-menu = false.
From my limited knowledge, it looks like home-manager’s dconf module can only handle one level of flattening at a time - it flattens just-perfection to org/gnome/shell/extensions just fine, but attempting to flatten twice - first extensions to org/gnome/shell, then just-perfection to it’s result (org/gnome/shell/extensions) - fails.
Is this a misconfiguration on my part, a bug/limitation in home-manager, or something else?
Many thanks!
Gramdalf
Apologies for the long, run on, semi-repetitive post - my brain is frazzled at the moment. I wanted to get this post off for now, but I can clarify later on if anything is unclear.